Depends what you mean by "VG" - book grading is so damn subjective that I find it fairly meaningless (I tend to make the assumption that VG means "a bit tatty" as that seems to be the way most dealers grade things).

I would say that for anything other than the final two books, there is no need to pay a lot for F/NF copies. UK HoME 1/1 copies were printed in varying, but fairly large numbers (in the 3,500 - 7,500 sort of range). Only the final two might prove tricky because the price is usually steep on those ones, irrespective of condition. I don't believe there is any real logic behind the pricing of 11 and 12 (and to a lesser degree, 10), but there is a false belief in their rarity which seems to feed the pricing. If possible, get priced copies as these seem to be more highly prized.

If you are in no hurry and are in the UK, just take your time. The availability of UK 1/1 HoME has consistently improved over the last few years and the price has correspondingly dropped (and continues to do so). .

Your trick will be getting the Unfinished Tales with the matching HoME cover to complete the set. That one took me years and is the only one that would be difficult to replace!

The reason I ask is because I have my eye on some books in VG condition- would these still command a decent price or does it really had to be fine/near fine? I understand there would be a slight drop but is that likely to be all? Thanks

Funnily enough, my copy of the 1997 Folio Sil went missing en-route as well. In the end, I found out about 6 months later that the seller had sent it to an old address related to my paypal account, and not the address they (a) told me they sent it to, (b) I had listed on the payment or (c) I had listed on the eBay transaction and (d) I had re-iterated in the text of the paypal payment.

I only figured this out because it was the address of my previous employer and I happened to bump into someone who still worked there that mentioned they had a parcel for me, so I got them to forward it on. I've always wondered how the buyer got the wrong address from Paypal/eBay as it was not listed on on any of the electronic communications between us. However it occurred, it seemed like a fairly significant privacy breach for someone to gain access to address details that were not supplied as part of the transaction. After that I deleted all of my old addresses from both accounts, just in case it happened again...